Wednesday, 4 June 2014

New-ish Drawings!

I am really behind on updating this blog with drawings, some jobs going back as far as last year are still yet to make an appearance!

I'll jump straight in first with a recently published piece and work backwards from there, above are some spot illustrations for the World's Greatest Movie Magazine EMPIRE. Lovely job, simple brief too, I was given a list of movie characters to draw, doesn't get easier than that, right? Er.. apparently it even this I struggle with, as I thought i'd drawn all the characters and was kicking back and relaxing when Empire AD Chris emailed me to tell me I had missed a character off the list!

I re-read the list and he was right of course , for some unknown reason I did not write the character.s name (bottom right) in my sketchbook... Y'see, I no longer print off briefs like I used to, a case of me doing my bit for the environment, and of course with having email on my phone, the brief is always at my fingertips if need be.. I rewrite the main parts of a brief on paper, and go from there to sketching... a rare example of me here not concentrating, alas all was well and good and I got the drawing to Chris the following morning.

See if you can name the films these characters appear in, most are obvious.

Above is another set of spots drawn for EMPIRE last year no less... Not sure what the delay has been in posting these up.

Lovely brief again, the fellas at the magazine spoil me sometimes... these were printed tiny, crossed fingers they'll let me draw something full page for them one day!

These were for a section about Movie Cryogenics, again see if you can name the movies.

Above are a few drawings from the final issue of Nuts magazine. As written on my last post, Nuts has been one of my most ardent supporters and a regular commissioner of my work for a number of years now.

I was very sad to hear that the title would be closing it's doors, and not just for the obvious reason that my income will undoubtedly have been dented somewhat (although i've not felt it yet, busier than ever!) but actually there are many reason why I will mourn the passing of the title.

I will first of all miss the interaction with the Art team there, which consisted of 4 members; Simon Freeborough, Barney Hammond, Nitish Mandalia, and James Jarman, and they were to a man all great to work with, giving me great briefs, paying fairly and really made me feel like I was contributing to the the title... but more than that, I do think of them as friends, rather than just clients.

As it was weekly the deadlines came thick and fast (how I like it!) and I don't think i've worked with a harder working team in my life.

I also think something is now missing from the world of magazines since its demise, Nuts was in it's way kind of fearless, they pushed the envelope on many occasions, in fact my drawings often pushed the boundaries, there are images that are in my portfolio that simply no other magazine would of had the bottle to publish (Ha, some may say good taste!) and regardless of some of the negative press the publication has garnered over the years, I am extremely proud to have my work associated with the title.

These drawings were for a feature about the many stars that Nuts writer Rich Pelley had managed to aggravate over the years (told you they had some bottle!) Amongst a rather large list of celebs, who'd acted in a some kind of diva-ish way were Gordon Ramsay, the late Steve Irwin and Dizzy Rascal.

These were just the best three I drew for the feature, there was also drawings of James Corden, Jason Statham and a variety of others.

All of these images were animated in some small way for the IPad edition, below is an example of how this may have looked.

Just want to say a big thank you here to Simon, Barney, Nitish, James and the whole Nuts team for giving me such great things to draw over the years, it was an honor and a privilege.